Archive for May 24, 2008

I wish we would see more cabinets (that aren’t for MAME projects) being sold in the US. Perhaps I’m out of the loop on the subject of cabinets and I can’t speak for abroad but here it would be nice. I have a number of JAMMA kits laying around and I have needed to find any old, slightly worn cabinet I can to get them into when it would be better to get a new cabinet that affordable but nice. Take for instance the new JVS multicab called the GBalance – it’s sleek, sports a high-res 32″ 16:9 monitor and can house TypeX, Lindbergh and of course JAMMA kits inside. It even features an upconverter for JAMMA, which I assume means that it will upconvert the resolution of your old games to sweet, sweet HD. It’s basically the modern JAMMA cabinet that can sport other boards. I don’t know the price on these yet but it is tempting to want to import these a few of these for my own purposes.

I logged onto youtube tonight and I checked my subscriptions and to my surprise a video of the upcoming Need For Speed Carbon Arcade was on there, by Birmingham Vending. They have been posting a number of arcade videos to youtube recently (including one for Desert Gunner that I hadn’t seen before) and just a few hours ago posted one about the NFS: Carbon game that we had reported about some time ago. Like fighters this is also the year of the racer, as it seems that every company will have a couple in store for us as the year goes on. One interesting piece of news is that GlobalVR will be releasing NFS: Carbon only as a kit that can go into any Need For Speed cabinet (GlobalVR has released a few already, including Underground). Also of interest is the mention of a card system for the game, they say it is recommended but not required. Card systems are very scarce on US made games but it looks like GVR is taking a note from games that do use these systems. Here is the video, it looks like it won’t be too much longer before this game will be hitting the streets.

Also I just checked GVR’s website to see if there is any mention of the game and it looks like they have updated the site with screens and the information that BHM used in the description of the video. It’s interesting to see that this is solely an upgrade kit, I hadn’t expected that but it is a nice surprise. Now I wonder if I can find any NFS cabinets for cheap…

More pics at GlobalVR’s website. I haven’t played the console version of the game before so someone else will have to tell me about how it plays. I do hope that the next game to come from GVR won’t be based on a console game though, of course the strategy has paid off for them so far (heck, even I’m getting Blazing Angels Arcade) but it would be nice to see some more original content coming along that can’t be found on a console (of course the same goes for a few other companies but that doesn’t mean that I’m not against these new games).

While most mainstream media outlets have been going through a heyday with the erroneous Reuters report that we commented on recently that was focusing on the “dying arcade industry”, one took the time to find a good arcade in California and discuss it a little. Called Direct from SF: San Fransisco’s Best Arcade isn’t in San Fransisco”, they take a look at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk which actually encompasses several arcades where one can find any number of great games as well as some real gems. Along with mentioning some great classics they even mention that Blazing Angels was recently brought to arcades and they take a good look at the pinball machines one can fine in the area. If I ever make it to that area of California, I’ll certainly have to drop by and check it out.

While most mainstream media outlets have been going through a heyday with the erroneous Reuters report that we commented on recently that was focusing on the “dying arcade industry”, one took the time to find a good arcade in California and discuss it a little. Called Direct from SF: San Fransisco’s Best Arcade isn’t in San Fransisco”, they take a look at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk which actually encompasses several arcades where one can find any number of great games as well as some real gems. Along with mentioning some great classics they even mention that Blazing Angels was recently brought to arcades and they take a good look at the pinball machines one can fine in the area. If I ever make it to that area of California, I’ll certainly have to drop by and check it out.

Sometimes, a 6:30am wake-up call and a peak hour London tube journey will ruin your day. Today, they absolutely didn’t. The destination was Sega Amusements Europe, where a private Sega Rally 3 launch event was to be held. Arriving somewhat early in spite of transport mess-ups, and finding myself at the wrong door thanks to some slightly dodgy directions, I was greeted by staff and taken in to see the new machine.

For those of you that haven’t been following the Sega Rally 3 saga over the past few months, the game was originally location tested under the name “Super Challenge” (in fact, the name still makes a cameo on the final cabinet, as you’ll see later on). Users of the test machine quickly identified some striking similarities to Sega Rally Revo (or just Sega Rally in Europe), a series update for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC by the UK-based Sega Racing Studio. As I found out today, Sega Rally Revo and Sega Rally 3 were developed side by side, and as a result they share many of the same assets – the music is largely the same and art is shared between the two. The game is an important project for Sega Amusements Europe, as the software has been wholly developed in Europe and is the first attempt by the branch at creating a motion cabinet. However, I’m pleased to say that Sega Rally 3 stands out as an individual game, thanks to a variety of new features and some more subtle changes.